time. >> imagine a huge wall many, many feet high coming at you with such speed and such force that you cannot out swim this you cannot outrun we've got to be up hi enough. and prayed doesn't hit you that is your own escape welcome to violent earth i'm liev schreiber tsunamis are one of the deadliest forces of nature, are most often triggered by earthquakes below or near the ocean unlike weather phenomenon like tornadoes and hurricanes no one can predict when an earthquake and tsunami might happen. there is no season or specific time of year but when an undersea earthquake strikes and a magnitude of 7.5 or larger a dangerous tsunami might be set in motion and unsuspecting people on shore might have only minutes to get to high ground this let's tsunami is very powerful full set of waves it's caused by this larger disruption under the surface of the ocean that moves the water for many hours all across the ocean basin the amount of power and the amount of destruction is really mind-blowing to feel a tsunami is to understand the fury of nature it's in comparable to anything other dave and i were in the thing knob providence we could look out and see the beach and the water was like class i remember saying today, if my god, it looks like a postcard it was shallow, which was good because i don't know how to swim i can swipe to buy, not fireball. lots of fusion we went 2004 without two little kids time. then with 3-years-old and lastly, was 1-year-old we stayed in bungalow resort directly at the beach of cow luck. the beaches are so calm and so nice there are different mechanisms that can create a tsunami. >> you can have undersea landslides, you can have landslide that splashdown into the water you can have volcanic activity but the ones that produce the biggest tsunamis or earthquakes we felt the earthquake sitting on the bed. it could've been 1015 seconds, maybe 30 i just remember going oh, i was an earthquake. >> and then i forgot about i'm from san francisco. it really didn't faze me. >> we didn't tell anything the only thing we noticed was an animal who was screaming, though we don't have nine months who all together at the beach i was laying down and read a book and my kids and my wife playing at the shoreline the water was normal and five minutes later, i looked back water was gone and what's happened there when there's a tie, it the water recedes rapid so we're rid of suddenly out of the blue, that is one sign that a tsunami wave could be coming if you see that, then you may have a few minutes but don't wait i had just met verbena we were going to do some yoga on the beach from where we were we could not see the water we're on the sandbar. it's a very narrow strip restaurants and shops. near to solving diet ball i was grown up on on an island and the north sea. i'm grown up with water i did not recognize that hamas but that is not good valid the hidden liggett difficile random it was so far away. i'm going to ensnare, give you this whole past because we saw awake those all across the horizon and dave and i were looking at gone. why didn't know? world is the wave came nearer and nearer and then i turn the camera to another spot. >> the little just gonna kinda interesting official border in this get kinda there's no direct here started right? turning at that point, but we didn't it didn't look that high plus we just didn't know what we were watching. >> the closer it got the louder it god it sounded like jet engines now, owner of the resort started screaming and tall but we could tell by the fear in his voice that it was serious i just but the camera and i started running at the very last point. >> i don't know why i turned, but i did the way the bank and it just went like that that wave was not ten feet anymore. it was 40 feet i just thought that's it. >> i'm dead i was running behind dave he ran into this building and i just made it split decision to not go in the buildings i just saw often the distance does pickup truck. so i just brand as fast as i could verbena, so we have got to run this water very shallow water was coming in. >> maybe a foot deep, but it was very, very strong. i could no longer lift up my feet and i looked up and i saw black wall of water approximately five to six stories high coming right for me and then i was blasted off my feet we had just finished packing and my wife goes grab your camera, look oh, my god, look at the way he's coming i hope no one was out there oh my god, look out. in the room i knew it was a sami no doubt in my mind i was pretty much in a panic completely luck the first floor that a time when people were still sleeping in their rooms when the fish capsized became a horrible situation. >> probably wasn't all to tonight me to tell me i never heard before we run for life look two presidents, the former under our leadership, the forgotten man and woman, will be forgotten, no longer the tsunamis are incredibly deadly because not only are they walls of water, but they are also carrying a tremendous amount of debris, and they're moving at incredible speeds. [people screaming] yumei wang: the tsunami can pick up so much sediment, so it's very heavy. if you're caught up in even a foot of tsunami water, you can likely die. it's not a cresting wave. just think of the entire ocean being pushed forward, and so it's a giant wall of water coming at you. [women screams] cindi preller: if you feel an earthquake, the first thing to do is to get cover and hold. anybody that's next to the ocean should start counting to 20. man 1: oh, my god. cindi preller: and if you can get to 20 and it's still shaking, then you have to evacuate. because at 20 seconds, it's roughly a magnitude seven. you just got to go to high ground right then. the epicenter of the earthquake that caused the indian ocean tsunami was a 9.1 magnitude, among the most powerful earthquakes and tsunamis that have occurred since 1900. that earthquake was about 600 miles long a very long fault rupture. the aceh province of indonesia was the first area struck by the indian ocean tsunami within 15 to 30 minutes. and then within 60 to 90 minutes later, it struck the shoreline of phuket, thailand. corina allen: and then traveling to sri lanka and africa hours after that. and so it took some time, but not an incredible amount of time for those waves to travel across the indian ocean. rocky lopes: it reached 18 countries in total. the trouble is, no one knew it was coming. there was no tsunami warning system in place in that region. [birds chirping, waves crashing] december 26, 2004, the plan was just going to have a nice time by the pool. me and my fiancee, sarah. about 10 in the morning, we heard people screaming. [men screaming] and then we saw a lot of people just running into the hotel. so we ran up, i think, two floors. and in the stairwell, we could see a lot of water coming in. but just after that, i realized that there were people downstairs on the ground floor, elderly people, disabled people. because this hotel didn't have elevators. and i realized that there might be people who needed help. so i just told sarah to stay on our floor, the third floor, and i ran down. and when i came down, the water was very calm. what you have happening is the wave is drawn back, and it's amassing into better formed wave before it comes rushing in. oftentimes, the biggest wave is not the first wave. fredrik bornesand: a lot of people went down to look for family. and i saw an older couple. and when i was about just a couple of meters from them to help them, i heard terrible screams. it's coming again. man 2: it's coming again? yeah, it's coming again. and then the second wave came. [people screaming] [suspenseful music] the force of the water was tremendous. this elderly couple was hanging onto a railing. and i tried to reach them. and then just suddenly, the very foundation that railing was attached to just slided away, and they just disappeared. and then i was stuck in a corner of the hotel with a lot of furniture just coming towards me in high speed. inside was almost filled up to my head with water. i was quite sure that this was the end of it. i got to the pickup truck. and there were a few people on it. and right at that point, the water hit. the water picked up the truck, and we just floated away like we were on a gigantic river. and we slammed up against one of those huge earthmoving trucks. we climbed up on top of that, and we just watched everything just float by. off in the distance, i just saw the building that dave ran into. it was just a little tiny tip of the roof, and then water. that was it. i had tremendous guilt for not following him. i was trapped between debris, and i'm underwater. and i'm thinking, i'm going to die here. and i thought that was it until another wave came and blasted me out of that death trap. i was being tumbled. random things were hitting my head, my face, my legs. i woke up underwater, and it was pitch black. and the water had stilled again. and there was a circle of light in the distance. i just started swimming to that circle of light. want to save on some of the biggest names in streaming on the network made for streaming? x marks the spot. now you can add the new xfinity streamsaver™ that includes netflix, peacock, and apple tv+. that's xfinity streamsaver™ for just $15 a month. all your favorites. all in one place. only from xfinity. for more watching and less spending... x marks the spot. do it all on the network made for streaming, and bring on the good stuff. [woman panting] any coast can be affected by a tsunami, but some coasts are at much higher peril than others. the ones right next to a subduction zone, that's where you need to be most worried. subduction zones are the longest faults in the world, and so they are capable of producing the largest earthquakes in the world. magnitude eights, magnitude nines. when i'm talking about a subduction zone, i'm talking about two plates coming together. you have typically an oceanic plate, a heavier plate that is being pushed down beneath a continental plate, a lighter, massive plate. and it will push, and push, and push for tens or hundreds, in some cases even 1,000 years before it's released as an earthquake. there's probably a couple of dozen or so named subduction zones, most along the pacific rim. yumei wang: the ring of fire is an area around the pacific rim, where you have a concentration of active earthquakes and active volcanoes. the atlantic is mostly lacking subduction zones. so the big, mega, great earthquakes, they don't occur there. [tense music] [heavy waves crashing] fredrik bornesand: i was just trapped. and i thought, ok, i'm going to die, but i'm going to fight. and then i started climbing and got loose from some furniture. then i was just pushed through this wall of glass into the lobby. and after a few minutes, the water receded. and then i saw two thai guys, and they were trying hard to help a man that was floating unconscious. so me and the guy went down in the water and just dragged this man up. and this was the same man that was hung on the railing before. we didn't know if he was alive or not. frederick gave me one task, just try to calm him and talk to him. he told me that his name was malcolm and that he was from england. fredrik bornesand: we made bandages of sheets. we didn't give it any big chances that he made it. [woman yelling] you're hearing people yelling and screaming because they're looking for their family. at that point, the water had receded enough that i was walking with all of the survivors to get to the highest point of the island. and dave came running up, and he was ok. i was grateful to see her. i just, what happened? where did you go? my brain, the entire time, assumed she was right behind me. i ran into a two-story concrete building. my first thought was, this is the closest and strongest building. let me go upstairs. but unfortunately, i spent too much time looking for a stair, so i had to keep running. christine lang: i barely got to the surface, but i did. it was a miracle. i was able to hoist myself up onto a floating door. i could see that there was a hotel in front of me. when i finally made it to the hotel, there were people dying all around me. and it just seemed so unbelievable that this was happening. and from the rooftop, we could see the entire island had been completely wiped out. i thought oh, my god, what has happened to rubina? it wasn't until a few weeks later that she had been found and properly identified. [people screaming] kid: [speaking german] we crossed this road, and then we climbed up the hill. when we look down, it was so unreal. fredrik bornesand: me and sara went to some hospitals to find this man, malcolm, again. we really wanted to know if he survived or not. and there, on a list, we saw this name, malcolm boyd, england. both me and sara was very happy to find malcolm alive. so i just hugged malcolm, and sara took the picture. his partner was identified several months later. we had the luck to get into first plane, which was flown directly to germany from phuket. and i remember still the words of the captain. he only said, i want to say, welcome on board. we bring you home. we are so lucky, and we know that many people did not survive. cindi preller: it shocked the world. it put tsunami into the global language. that was one of the first events where people had cameras to be able to capture what it looks like, what it sounds like, what the experience was. [man screaming] the indian ocean tsunami was so deadly because it was a surprise to many, many people. it was a huge wake up call for the need for advanced tsunami warning systems. it resulted in a significant improvement of global detection equipment and global coordination of tsunami warning systems. i don't think we'll ever see anything like that again of that magnitude of loss of life. stuart weinstein: the earliest recorded tsunami dates back to 2000 bc, and it occurred off the coast of syria. over the past 100 years, there have been five earthquakes with magnitudes of nine and above. all of them generated devastating tsunamis. tsunami waves travel very fast in the deep ocean, as fast as a jet plane at 500 miles an hour. they slow down as they reach shallow water to about 20 or 30 miles an hour. these are very long waves. if you're out in the open ocean, you wouldn't even notice it. it's not until the tsunami comes close to the shore that the water begins to pile up and creates this dangerous storm surge. [heavy waves crashing] tsunami is a japanese word. tsu means port or harbor, and nami means wave. and it's a word you hear all the time. one of the world's best and most robust tsunami warning systems is in japan. because japan has had the most experience with tsunamis than any other country of the world. they've occurred there for thousands of years. kyung lah: because japan is an island, because it sits on the pacific ring of fire, earthquakes and natural disasters are something that japan grows up with. the idea of a tsunami is embedded and enmeshed in japanese culture. they invest heavily in science. they invest heavily in infrastructure, build seawalls, build early warning systems. kyung lah: a devastating impact along the northeast coastline. [suspenseful music] i was the cnn international-based correspondent in tokyo. that day, i happened to be in the subway. i could feel it. it started off slightly shaking, and then the force came. what's unusual about being underground during an earthquake is you don't feel the buildings shake. i somehow couldn't comprehend that i was in the middle of a massive earthquake. the train stop. japanese trains run with incredible precision down to the very second, and they weren't moving. so the first thing i did was i picked up my cell phone, and i called cnn. we are getting word of a powerful earthquake that has hit japan. we want to go to kyung lah. kyung lah (on phone): everything was shaking. the signs were moving. people became very alarmed. the japanese meteorological agency is so hyper advanced in warning and in bulletins. and it comes across your cell phone. people are just basically waiting here, waiting to see what's going to happen next. the early reports. we're getting word it was a seven-- seven, five, maybe an eight. reporter: this is a historic earthquake. and then the number just kept climbing and climbing. an incredible upgrade of an earthquake from a 7.9, which is what we initially thought this was. and when it hit 9.0, i could not believe it. [clattering] its energy release was about equivalent to 1,500 hiroshima bombs. there were places where the fault moved 200 feet. almost 2/3 of a football field. that's a lot. corina allen: the magnitude of that motion was more than had ever been measured before. japan is actually sitting a little closer to north america than it used to before the earthquake. kyung lah: this was long. [sirens wailing] i'm talking to cnn. i was focusing on this huge earthquake i had just experienced and not really comprehending that an epic disaster was on its way. [people screaming] kyung lah: first there is the earthquake. and you feel as if you will die. [sirens wailing] and then comes a tsunami. the tsunami came ashore in japan in as little as 15 minutes. man 3: whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! [people screaming] japan may have been hit by waves, as in some places, over 100 feet, perhaps a maximum of 120 feet. pretty scary. corina allen: there was nothing to stop it. and so it continued to pick up homes, debris, equipment, cars. you see this black mass of water full of debris. it was devastating. [people screaming in japanese] satoshi ito was working at a hotel and scrambled up the hillside. he could see his boss scrambling up, trying to make it. the water came right up to her. [people screaming] it's terrifying, watching somebody you know just disappear. he thought she was gone. [man screaming] the good fortune is that she managed to survive. i was caught in the whirlpool. the bus cars and houses were over my head. i felt pain, but i kept swimming. i just wanted to live. broadcaster: the city of sendai was hardest hit by today's quake and by the tsunami that followed. mao takahashi: [speaking japanese] 16-year-old mao takahashi, standing on his balcony, described to us how, like so many people that day, he ran out and tried to capture the images that he was seeing. mao takahashi: [speaking japanese] the water was raging. and he saw a man. he didn't know him. mao takahashi: [speaking japanese] man 4: [speaking japanese] and this 16-year-old kid risked his own life, got into the water, and saved someone he doesn't even know. cindi preller: we never want people to evacuate in their cars. cars are quite dangerous, actually. cars are a lot of ways that people drown. you can see the tsunami coming up behind very quickly. this guy, he goes back to close the door. and really within seconds, he is surrounded by tsunami on both sides. a lot of people break the windows, climb out, and get on top of their cars. breaking news, japan reeling from a monumental natural disaster, the most powerful earthquake in its history, followed by a killer tsunami. it destroyed coastal towns for about 300 miles. in one town that i went to, it looked like the whole city had been put into a mud blender. another town, there was a massive fire that had burned through the entire town. man 5: [speaking japanese] entire towns vanished, disappeared, just mountains of rubble everywhere. people lost everything. the march 11, 2011 tsunami in japan is reported to have caused approximately 20,000 deaths. man 6: [speaking japanese] the seawall had been built to withstand a tsunami of a certain level. they had done their planning up to an 8.0. a magnitude nine earthquake releases about 32 times the amount of energy as a magnitude eight earthquake. but beca